Pact
by lynnja
Summary: A young girl makes a deal with the king of the crossroads himself. Crowley x oc... ish.
1. The Deal

He couldn't say for sure why he was the one who answered her call. Certainly he didn't have to, he was the king of the crossroads demons; he usually only answered calls from already notable humans in some shape or another. But, the thing was, he did answer. For better or for worse.

It started off simple enough. Just the same as every other call he answered.

"Hello love."

Crowley looked at the target for just a minute before looking around to the crossroads that he'd been summoned to. It was night – it usually was. The area was deserted as far as he could see and the only other thing nearby were some blackbirds in a tree a few hundred yards away and a rabbit that was currently running in terror. Only when his curiosity had been satisfied did he turn back to the girl that had summoned him.

"Bit young for this, aren't you?"

The girl couldn't be more than eleven, ten. She had dark hair that she wore like a curtain and she was scrawny. Nothing but a slip of a creature. Not remarkable, not even that pretty until she looked up at him. Her eyes were green and they almost seemed to glow by the light of the small lantern she'd placed next to her. The girl was kneeling on the ground, hands still in front of her, nails crusted with dirt. The ground in front of her was freshly upturned.

He could tell now, he'd gotten her age wrong. Thirteen maybe, that'd be about right.

"I didn't think that would work," she said. Her lips twisted as though she were thinking about something unpleasant. He'd seen this before, second doubts. Her voice was steady enough though. More so than most adults he dealt with. Which made him ask, "Do you know what you've done? Or did you find the spell and decided to give it a go for shits and giggles?"

She tilted her head. Any uncertainty that was in her voice before was gone when she replied, "I know what I'm doing. I have something I want to trade my soul for."

The girl didn't look away from him. Didn't flinch. Crowley was interested. Of course, he didn't show that, his face was just as bored as it ever was. When he spoke it was his normal snarky tone. "Of course you do. What's the problem? Don't have enough barbie dolls? Did your brother break your Easy Bake Oven? Oh, I've got it. Your mother won't let you go to your friend's sleepover and all the cool girls are going."

"My mother's dead."

"I'd say I'm sorry but I'm really not."

That got a reaction from the girl. She scowled. He ignored her and asked, "What's your name."

He knew, of course he knew. She had called him.

"Saffie."

"That's not it. Your full name."

The girl's scowl deepened. Well, even if he couldn't get her scared he could get her angry. That was something.

She answered, "Sapphire Anne Scott."

Crowley knew that he had no grounds to stand on when it came to names but he couldn't help but grin when the words left her lips. "Sapphire? Well, excuse me princess." If she got any angrier she might punch him. Not that he was worried. Or even bothered.

"My parents were pretentious douchebags."

"Ouch. Now, you know it's not nice to speak about the dead like that."

Saffie finally stood up. She rolled her eyes and Crowley had to wonder about the last time someone had the audacity to do that to him. He was the king of the crossroads and this child was rolling her eyes at him. He needed to work on his image. Or maybe scare the hell out of her.

Crowley began to approach her. "Listen child. I could smite you where you stand without even lifting a finger. I'm older than you could even imagine and I WILL NOT HAVE YOU ROLLING YOUR EYES AT ME!"

She looked away but didn't step back. He was impressed despite himself. Demons cowed when he started yelling.

Saffie brushed her hands on the dirty white dress she was wearing and opened her mouth to speak. Though she didn't show it, Crowley could tell that she was scared. Her mouth closed and she swallowed before trying again. "I want you to tell me who killed my mother."

Again he was taken by surprise. "You do know that I can just kill whomever it was that killed her." It seemed a lot simpler in his mind, so Crowley was a bit taken aback when she started to shake her head.

"That's not what I want. I want to know who it is who killed her." She spoke slow as though speaking to someone who was having trouble keeping up. Crowley was a big enough man to find her antics more amusing than vexing. A lesser demon might have gotten irritated, killed her. But he was patient, he wasn't like those steroid laden monkeys under his command that called themselves demons.

"Fine. That's our deal then. I tell you who killed mommy dearest and in ten years I get your soul."

He wasn't sure why he was spelling it out for her, Crowley certainly wasn't below sneaking or tricking someone's soul from them. If this kept going you could strap a pair of wings on him, take away his sarcasm, and call him a fairie. Or angel. They were both annoying.

Saffie looked down and her weight shifted from foot to foot. She was thinking about her offer. Of course, it was a moot point by now. Crowley knew that she would say,

"Deal."

Crowley smiled, or he did until she looked up. Again he was taken aback by her eyes. She might have been young but she was no idiot. She knew what would happen in ten years – right? Something about this deal gave him an ill feeling and as he leaned over and pressed a brief kiss to her lips to seal the deal.

* * *

><p>I'm not usually one to write canonx oc fanfictions but this story just wouldn't leave me alone. If you don't like, that's fine. If you do want to leave a critique or comment, that'd be more than fine. And, as always, I don't own the characters sans Saffie, or the show.<p> 


	2. A Second Meeting

When his underlings were getting particularly aggravating, Crowley liked to check on his investments. At the moment the demons were past aggravating and moving him more into the 'If you speak with me again about Satan this and apocalypse that I am going to kick you in the essence so hard your bones shake' mood. In other words, it was a good time to get out of the office. Satan might be a little... lax when it came to caring how demons treated each other but if he went on a tantrum and slaughtered everyone in reach it wouldn't really bode well for his reputation.

Always the business man, Crowley had eggs in a number of baskets. Most of his deals were the mundane stuff; musicians who thought finding the right chords to make them famous was worth damnation, politicians who thought the same of the right poll numbers. The normal, routine stuff.

But there was one person he was particularly interested to check on and he saved her for last.

When he appeared in her room, she jumped. There was a book in her hand and it clattered to the floor as she scrambled to her feet. Crowley had his back to her but he knew exactly what was going on. Slowly, more for dramatic effect than anything else, he turned.

She hadn't changed that much. The black hair was still drawn around her face and the eyes were still an eerie green. The orange suit she had on was baggy but he doubted her frame had changed that much either. His lips twitched into a smile as she got her breathing under control and sat back down, the book left where it was.

"It's after visiting hours," she said. Her voice was pleasant. A lot more expressive than it had been when she was making the deal.

Crowley didn't answer her at first, instead he looked around the room. It was pretty bare and there were bars on the window. It didn't take a genius to figure out where she ended up. Funny, he would have thought better of here. If asked he would have thought she, more than any of his other contracts, could have turned into something grand. Then again, it had only been four years since he'd seen her last. So she was seventeen then. That gave her another six years to make him proud.

"Does the view not please your highness?" When Crowley turned to look at Saffie he saw her watching him, delighted. How she got amusement out of baiting the King of Hell was beyond him. Did she think that he wouldn't kill her early; contract be damned? … Er, she was probably right by that but not for the reason she might think. If nothing else she was interesting, a change on the morons he had to deal with normally.

"You're more expressive than I recall."

She looked down and began to dig the dirt out from under her nails. "I've gotten better at faking it. Emotions that is. Caring. Surprise, anger, the works" Saffie grinned but there was no humor in it. "I'm good at faking a lot of things."

He thought about her words for a moment. "So, what? You're a... psychopath?" His hand waved as he tried to think of the correct term.

She looked up from her nails. "Anti-social personality disorder," she corrected. Then she added, "But it's my own diagnosis. I could be wrong." Saffie jabbed a just-cleaned nail towards the door in her room. "They say it's psychopathy but that's not right. But, I found out that if that's what I was diagnosed with, they'd let me go at eighteen. Well, assuming I can lie well enough." Another grin. "I'd like to think I can, seeing as how they've got me all wrong."

Crowley looked around the room again. No sharp edges on anything, nothing string like or something in any color but white or gray except for Saffie. "So this is a psychiatric ward then. I'm glad to see that you had such grand dreams in exchange for your soul." He flashed her a smile at the not so subtle reminder of their contract. She didn't flinch.

He continued. "You know, I could have done the deed for you. It wouldn't have been traced back to you, you would have spent the last four years a free woman."

Saffie refused to look at him, her gaze instead on the book still on the floor. She reached down to pick it up and unfurl the wrinkles before speaking. "That wasn't what I wanted."

"And what did you want? I mean, besides knowing who killed your mother."

She looked up from the book. Her answer was simple and one he could appreciate. "I wanted to kill the son of a bitch myself."


End file.
